


the last corner piece

by coraxes



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-10 21:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15957914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: Billie, Daud, and five reunions that never happened.Chapters are thematically connected but can be read as standalones.  Goes from pre-DH2 to Death of the Outsider.





	1. 1843 - Yaro, Tyvia

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "The Jeweler's Hands" by the Arctic Monkeys, which was made specifically for my Billie-and-Daud-loving ass.

Meagan Foster never had trouble with the Overseers. The Grand Guard, the City Watch, sure; she was a smuggler, and that came with the job. But there was no reason for the Overseers to bother her, or she them. When she heard the jarring tones of a Holger device, they didn’t drive her to her knees like they used to. When she passed a narrow Tyvian alley and saw three of them surrounding a prone figure, Meagan thought, _keep walking._

It was none of her business.

She remembered being pinned on a roof, blood pounding in her head in time with the music, eyes refusing to focus.

 _Keep walking_. Meagan turned on her heel; her steps were steady as she reached for her knife.

The Overseer holding the Holger device had a thick neck. She had to put her arm into the strike to make sure the job got done. Arterial blood gushed over her hand and forearm, and the two remaining Overseers turned to her with cries of alarm.

It didn’t do them much good.  As soon as the notes stuttered, the figure on the ground rolled to his feet and drew his blade in a familiar motion. Billie’s body responded before her mind made the connection. She took one target, he took the other.  It was only when the Overseers were cooling on the ground that Billie's mind caught up and she recognized the man whose back was pressed against hers.  "Daud," she blurted out.

“Lurk,” he said, aiming for curt, but she heard the surprise in his tone.

Billie turned. Daud hadn’t changed much; the face watching her now was the same as the one on the poster. More lined, maybe, his hair a little greyer, but in essence the same.  Her heart pounded anyway.  “Getting sloppy, old man,” she said. “What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?”

The same thing, probably. She had seen Daud beat worse odds and knew from experience that the Holger devices could be overcome. It was just…difficult. And not a situation he should have been getting into without backup.

“Save it,” said Daud. His eyes flitted to the bodies, then back up to her. “Do you have somewhere we can go?”

 _We._ Alright, then. “I have an apartment near the docks,” Billie said “Meet you on the balcony?”

He nodded sharply and then dissolved into the air. Billie caught a glimpse of him on a nearby rooftop; for a second she felt a twinge of that old power again, but she wasn’t sure if it was an effect of Daud being so close or her imagination. She hadn’t been able to do use magic since she left Dunwall.

Billie shook her head and let out a long breath. Five years since she had seen Daud, five years since she had been Billie Lurk; two seconds in his presence and it was like she never left.

Almost never, anyway.  The old Billie would have tried to race him across the rooftops.  She was itching to do it now.

Instead Billie wiped her blade off on one of the Overseer’s corpses and stowed it.  Then she stripped off her coat and draped it around her bloody hand and forearm. It was a relatively warm day in Tyvia; she wouldn’t be the only person to shed a few layers. She stepped around pools of drying blood on the packed-dirt ground.

The short walk back to her apartment hardly registered.  Knowing Daud, he would nose around her apartment later and find the little shrine set up to her nostalgia—not before she got back, but later. Daud never could keep his nose out of anything. It was a trait only made less annoying by the fact that she never stayed out of his shit, either.

She made her way up the stairs to the fifth floor two at a time and forced herself not to fumble as she unlocked first the front door, then the one leading to the tiny balcony overlooking the docks.  Billie caught a flash of red on the roofs across the street; then Daud was standing in front of her, pinned between Billie and the railing. 

She’d forgotten Daud was short.  Her height exactly.  It had always been absurdly satisfying to look him in the eye. 

“Well, make yourself at home,” she said dryly, since Daud was obviously letting the silence drag on.  She stepped aside and reached up to tug him forward—he’d never minded a little manhandling from her.

But, of course, it had been a long time since then.  She cut the gesture short, letting her arm hang in the air.  Daud spared her life; that wasn’t the same as forgiveness.

He hesitated, a muscle in his jaw ticking.  It was a familiar tell.  He had been practically asking for her to track them, going without a mask all the time.  Daud grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand down onto his shoulder.  “You’ve never been shy, Billie.  Don’t start now.”

Her fingers dug into the worn fabric.  There was a healing bullet wound in his shoulder when she left.  Billie wondered if it had scarred over since then.  She stepped inside, pulling him along with her.  Playing host to Daud of all people felt awkward.  As a whaler she’d been a pretty damn insubordinate subordinate, but there had always been a hierarchy involved.  Billie didn’t quite know what to do when he was on her turf, instead.

But there were practical considerations, so she dragged him to the sink.  “There’s soap and oil for your blade,” she told him, gesturing with one hand and turning on the faucet with the other.  Water burbled out of the pipe—it was too early in the year for them to freeze, thankfully.  Billie put her bloody knife down on his side of the sink and set to work getting bloodstains out of her sleeve.

“Not a bad place,” Daud said.  “You’ve been busy.”    

“Seems like you have, too. What was that back there? Thought you retired.” Official word was that Daud was dead, but Billie knew better. She’d gotten in touch with some of the old crew, heard that Daud had just dissolved the Whalers a few weeks after the child empress was back on her throne. Hadn’t said why. She wondered, if she had been there, whether she could have gotten an answer out of him.

“I have. No one’s going to be calling me the Knife of Dabovka any time soon.” Daud shrugged. “One of my contacts got nabbed by the Overseers. I was trying to get her out.”

Billie didn’t ask if he managed; the look on his face was enough answer.

“Have you been in Tyvia this whole time?” she asked.

“No.” He smirked a little. “I went to Serkonos for a while. Tried farming, even, but it didn’t take.”

Billie snorted. “Can’t imagine why.”

Daud elbowed her. “I’ve been travelling ever since. Usually I stick to the smaller cities, get some honest work in and move on.”

It wasn’t much different from what she did.  Billie made most of her coin from honest work, after all; the dishonest shit was just icing.  Icing that would get her enough to buy her own ship soon enough.  She hummed in understanding and let silence fall.  It was more comfortable this time.  They could have been in a thousand different hideouts after a thousand different jobs. 

Daud finished drying his sword, sheathed it, and moved on to her knife.  “It’s good that you’re here,” he said finally.

“To save your ass?  Agreed.”  She finished with her laundry—the bloodstains were as faded as they were going to get—and tossed the coat over a nearby chair to dry. 

“Not what I meant.”  Daud dried off the knife in a few quick, clean motions and handed it back over, his face uncomfortably serious.  “I’m glad you’re alright.”

 _Oh._ Billie’s hand closed around his on the hilt.  “Yeah, well, you too.”  She shook her head.  “Look, I never—”

“Don’t.  You wrote it when you left—no apologies, no excuses.”  Daud slipped his hand out from under hers.

She let out a breath.  Billie knew a farewell when she saw one.  “Keep in touch, then,” she said, before she could stop herself.  This little chance encounter was probably the closest thing to closure she could hope for.  A chance to start over seemed a little too—unlikely.  Still.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised.

When he disappeared from her life as abruptly as he'd entered it, Billie felt the answering tug of the void again.  She was pretty sure it wasn't just her imagination this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos (especially comments!!!) make my day, as not a lot of people seem to care about fic for these two. 
> 
> I know what all the rest of the chapters will be and have written most of the next, so it shouldn't take too long for this thing to update.


	2. 1847 - Caulkenny, Morley

Thomas watched from the doorway as Daud picked through his crowded storeroom shelves.  Most of Thomas’s customers bought from the shopfront upstairs, but it was after hours.  Besides, Daud was hardly  _most customers._ Thomas might not work for him anymore, but he’d always be the old boss.  He plucked a bone charm from the shelf.  They no longer sang to Thomas, but he could still make out the foreboding purple cast to the charm.  “Good find,” Daud said, turning it around in his fingers.  “How much?”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” said Thomas.  The charms were useless to him now, and he’d rather not give it to someone who might be driven mad.  Daud, at least, could get some use from the thing. 

 

Daud nodded in thanks and pocketed it, then picked up an extra box of bolts and a rewire tool.  “Have you gotten any of those new hook mines?” he asked.

 

Thomas frowned.  Going into the details on that venture with Daud seemed unwise.  “Not yet.  A couple of my suppliers are on it.”  He hesitated, but if he didn’t ask the question would bother him.  And it wasn’t as if Daud would take offense.  “The Poole job—that was you?”

 

Rumors had been swirling around Morley in the week since the merchant and her husband had been found by the servants—one dead in bed, the other shot so many times she was still pinned to the wall in the morning.  Those were the details Thomas was sure of, at least.  There were more gruesome ones.  Tales of blood smeared in occult patterns, hounds disemboweled in the study, and a shrine found in the attic. But gruesome rumors tended to appear more often than not; he knew the truth wasn't always so sensational.  Still, weeks later, the watchmen were still out looking for the murderer.

 

“Yeah.  Not my cleanest,” Daud admitted.  His jaw worked as if he were about to say something, but he left it alone.

 

So he was still killing, then.  It wasn’t a surprise.  Thomas had been in the whalers more for the gang itself than the work, but he doubted anyone got the Outsider’s attention by keeping their hands clean.  Whatever Daud’s regrets in Dunwall, he clearly hadn’t held back for long. 

 

“That reminds me.  Have you heard anything from Lurk?” Daud asked, jolting Thomas out of his thoughts.

 

Well, shit.  Thomas didn’t owe Billie any loyalty.  He could’ve died like any of the gang in her betrayal.  If Daud wanted to settle old scores, though…Thomas wasn’t going to be part of that, not after he’d already let her go.  “Not since she left Dunwall,” he said.  It wasn’t technically a lie, he told himself.  After all, she was going by a different name these days.

 

Daud frowned and held a vial of S&J elixir up to the light.  Apparently ,this new concoction healed him the same as Sokolov’s elixir used to heal all the whalers, though Thomas had lost his conduit to the void before he had the chance to try it.  Daud stowed the elixir in his pocket, then reached for his coin purse.

 

Upstairs, the bell over the door jingled.  “Just me,” a familiar voice called, and every muscle in Thomas’s body tensed.  Daud’s head whipped up toward the stairs like a wolfhound scenting blood.   _Don’t come down,_ Thomas thought inanely, but Billie’s boots thudded toward them anyway.  “Brought your usual, but—oh.”

 

She was right behind him.  Daud was right in front of him.  They stared at each other over Thomas’s shoulder.  Thomas strategically considered the rack of pistols a few feet away.  “Didn’t realize you’d been in business since Dunwall,” Daud drawled to Thomas, although his eyes didn’t leave Billie.

 

Thomas swallowed.  No one had tried to kill him in a long time; he preferred to keep it that way.

 

“I didn’t know you were here,” said Billie.

 

“Obviously,” said Daud.  Silence fell for a tense moment.  Thomas attempted to melt into the doorframe, and at least managed to get where he might not be caught in the crossfire.  Daud cleared his throat.  “What’s the usual, then?”

 

Billie blinked.  She really hadn’t changed much; Thomas was pushing forty, Daud well over that, but if Billie Lurk had changed beside the haircut Thomas couldn’t tell.  He wondered if Daud could.  That might explain why he was staring so intensely.  “Bolts, bullets, you know.  Most of it’s on its way from the docks, but I didn’t want these falling off the back of a rail cart.” Billie pushed back the flap of her bag and pulled out a small metal disk with a purple light glowing in its center.  “They’re—”

 

“Hook mines,” Daud said.  He actually _smiled._ It was a small smile, but Thomas had only seen Daud do that a handful of times in all his years with the whalers.  Come to think of it, most of those had been directed at Billie, too.  “You up for a trade?”

 

Billie relaxed a little, cocking one hip.  “Depends on what you’re offering.”

 

Thomas considered protesting—he’d been hoping to try a few of those out, himself, and maybe get a mechanic friend to look at one—but he wasn’t sure they remembered he was here.

 

“A drink for a mine.  There’s a place a few blocks away—”

 

Wait, since when did Daud _drink,_ either?  With company, anyway.  Thomas had found the boss’s liquor stash shortly after the mess with Corvo, but he’d never seen him affected by it; on days the whalers relaxed, Daud mostly just appeared to tell them to pipe down.

 

If Billie was surprised, though, she didn’t show it.  “Cantrell’s, yeah.”  A relieved smile pulled at her mouth.  “Two drinks per mine.  And they better not be cheap.”

 

Billie had always been closer to Daud than the rest of them, and there had always been rumors about just _how_ close.  Thomas had always discounted them—not least because she made her preference for women quite clear.

 

He was starting to think he should reconsider.

 

“Deal,” Daud said, and clapped Thomas on the arm hard enough that he winced; his smile got a little more...wolfish.  “Thanks for the information, Thomas.”  Billie turned to him, eyebrow raised.

 

Thomas considered defending himself, but _I thought you might kill her_ didn’t seem very believable, at the moment.  It didn’t matter, anyway.  They were already walking out of the store and hopefully out of his life for a few more hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that note in DOTO where Thomas was like "hey Daud asked about you and I lied 'cause I thought he might murder you"? Yeah. I fudged the timeline a bit and it's a little cracky, but I regret nothing.
> 
> I wrote this from Daud's POV first, then decided to do some outsider POV. But it's worth mentioning that his thought process was, basically, "wow I really fucked up that murder--Billie would never let me live it down. I wonder how she's doing anyway...HEY THOMAS"
> 
> as before, comments/kudos are much appreciated.


	3. 1849 - Karnaca, Serkonos

Something was going on with Aramis, and damned if Meagan wasn’t going to find out what it was.   It was tempting to just walk up to the door and ask to see him.  Aramis’s guards knew her.  But she didn’t recognize the men patrolling around his house now.  According to Aramintha, a housekeeper who had tracked Meagan down the night before, the guard and house staff had been dismissed—right after Breanna Ashworth, among others, had taken their leave.

 

She didn’t know what Duke Abele and Kirin Jindosh had to do with this, but if Breanna was involved…well, Meagan couldn’t just leave well enough alone.  Even if she was a little rusty when it came to breaking and entering.  She missed her magic like a limb as she climbed up the stairs of a nearby apartment building.

 

_No sense whining about that.  Just get in and get out,_  she told herself.  She had been to Aramis’s place dozens of times as a friend; slipping in as a spy couldn’t be too difficult.  Meagan had never left behind her habit of casing every building she saw.

 

She fiddled open the lock to an abandoned apartment and then forced its window open, biting her lip as the wood groaned.  The closest guard was at the end of the block, though, and he didn’t turn at the noise.  The windowsill was only a few feet from the scaffolding surrounding Aramis’s back garden.  Meagan turned, eyes narrowing; in the light of the streetlamps she could _barely_ make out the gap in the scaffolding she’d noticed a few weeks back.

 

So, her route was clear.  _Here goes nothing,_ she thought, and jumped.

 

Meagan hooked her fingers around the top of the scaffolding, grabbing on so tightly her knuckles protested, and her boots hit the support beam with a soft _thud._ Her heart pounded and she held her breath to keep in a hysterical chuckle.  Already her arms were protesting; they were doing most of the work to keep her up.  She let out the breath slowly and began to shuffle along the support beam to the gap.

She was almost halfway there when she heard a pistol cocking.  That was all the warning Billie got before the gun went off.  The wood beside her arm exploded into shrapnel.  She jerked away, arm and face stinging—her boots slipped—the ground came up to meet her.  Billie rolled, swearing at the impact, and landed feet away from the guard who had shot at her.  Blood trickled into one eye and she barely got her knife out in time to block the swipe of his blade.  The guard’s next strike evaded her parry, cold metal bit into her skin—

 

Something dark flew into the guard’s throat, knocking him back.  He choked on his next breath.  The sound should not have been comforting.  The guard collapsed as Billie pushed herself to her feet, looking around for her rescuer just in case she was the next target.

 

When Daud appeared in front of her, she had just enough presence of mind not to shout.  Instead she flinched backwards and hissed, “What the _fuck_.”  It took her a moment to recognize him—to compare the face in front of her to the one hanging in her cabin.  His expression convinced her: only Daud could scowl in a way that expressed concern for her wellbeing. 

 

“Alright?” he asked, reaching for Billie’s face before she could answer.  She leaned into his palm before she quite knew what she was doing.  “Any lower and he would have taken out your eye.”

 

“Good timing, then, old man.”  Her voice didn’t shake, even when they locked eyes for the first time since he had spared her life.

 

Panicked yells from another guard—summoned, probably, by the rapport of the pistol earlier—jolted them both out of it.  “Hang on,” Daud said.

 

“What?” Billie asked, but grabbed onto his coat anyway because she wasn’t an idiot.

 

Being pulled along in a transversal was completely different from doing one herself.  When Billie had transversed it was like the world folded around her— _she_ didn’t move, the ledge or the street or the rooftop did.  With Daud’s transversal pulling on her, though, Billie rushed past the frozen guards on the ground in the space of a heartbeat, eyes watering.  The first transversal brought them to the middle of a nearby stairwell; Daud paused long enough to adjust his free arm around her back, then transversed again to a rooftop.

 

A split second after they landed Billie had a very bad idea.  Between the blood loss and the adrenaline pumping through her veins she didn’t have enough sense to talk herself out of it.  So she used her grip on Daud’s coat to yank him forward, and kissed him.

 

He froze, and Billie almost stopped to salvage any remains of her pride.  But after a moment Daud let out a breath and relaxed against her.  She trailed a hand to the back of his neck as a memory replayed in her head, the way he’d sometimes shut his study door on the rest of the whalers and his shoulders would slowly lose their tension.  Billie tilted her head, leaning closer—and the wound over her eye brushed against his skin.  Flinching back, she let out a low hiss and raised her hand to the wound.

 

“Huh,” said Daud.

 

“Yeah, I never thought a rescue would do it for me either,” Billie said.  Probably it should sting her pride more that he’d had to show up like that.  It always had before.  But it was nice to have someone else watching her back these days, even if only by happenstance.

 

And then of course it was _Daud,_ which was another factor entirely.

 

“I need to take a look at that cut,” he said, tone businesslike though he made no effort to move away.  “I’ve been staying across town—”

 

“Nah, I’ve got a skiff waiting near the sewer entrance a couple blocks away.  Comes with its own pilot and everything.”  The words were out of her mouth before she could second-guess them.  Well, Anton had never been one to judge.

 

“Do you trust them?” Daud asked. 

 

“ _Really_?”

 

Daud rolled his eyes, and off they went.  A few more transversals took them to the street, away from the commotion of guards, and from there it was a matter of keeping their heads down—few were out at this hour, and no one paid any attention as Billie pulled him down to the skiff.

 

Anton jolted up from his sketchpad as they approached.  “Meagan, I heard gunfire, are you—” He halted, eyes narrowing; Billie ignored this and stepped into the skiff, searching under the seats for a first aid kit. Her head was starting to swim.  “Daud?”

 

“Sokolov,” Daud said curtly.

 

“Good, you know each other.  Saves me some time.  Anton, you mind getting us out of here?” Billie snapped.  She tossed the kit to Daud as he stepped into the skiff, hunching down on the seat beside her.  The little boat rolled with their movements, and Billie had to grab onto the seat as Anton started the engine.  As they pulled out of the makeshift dock, though, it steadied out enough for Daud to unpack some clean cloths and cheap disinfectant.

 

The situation felt all too familiar, considering the time that had passed.  Daud hadn’t had to patch her up often—there were others among the whalers with more experience.  But shit happened on the job and they hadn’t always had elixirs to remedy it.  Considering their current situation, Billie didn’t think it was wise to dwell on that. 

 

She couldn’t stop _staring_ at him.

 

Maybe she should have gone along to Daud’s place.

 

Thankfully Anton interrupted.  “What did you find at the manor?”

 

Right.  _Fuck._ Guilt welled in Billie’s chest; she’d gotten so swept up she forgot why she was there in the first place.  “Nothing,” she said.  “Got caught on my way in.  Aramintha was right about the guards, at least—they’re killing on sight.”

 

“Something’s wrong with the void there,” said Daud.  From the corner of her eye Billie saw Anton perk up.  “As soon as I transversed to the top of the wall, my magic felt drained.”

 

Billie blinked up at Daud as he mopped blood from her forehead.  “Wait, you were there to see the manor?  Why?” She’d just assumed she had really weird luck.

 

“Got pulled into the void a few nights ago,” said Daud.  “The black-eyed bastard wasn’t there, and everything was damaged.  Darker.  I was standing outside a version of Stilton’s manor, and I heard someone laughing.”  He pressed a bandage to her skin with one hand and tapped her wrist with the other.  Billie reached up to hold the bandage in place while he grabbed a roll of tape.

 

“You went to the _void_?” Anton asked.

 

“It was Delilah, wasn’t it?”

 

“Have you heard anything from her old crew?” Daud asked, voice carefully detached.

 

She shook her head.  “We didn’t keep in touch.  I just heard Breanna Ashworth was involved—Delilah’s lieutenant, back in the day.”  The look Daud shot her conveyed volumes.  Billie swallowed and kept herself steady when she added, “So I guess we’ll need to find out what they’re planning.”

 

He nodded and lifted her hand to tape the bandage in place, thumb slicking down the tape.  “Up for one more job, Billie?”

 

“Billie,” Anton repeated.  “Billie _Lurk_?”

 

“I’m not calling you _sir_ anymore,” she warned, and Daud grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaand finally we have real billie/daud instead of just pre-ship stuff. I did not plan to put the kiss in there but it happened when I wrote it. Did I spend some time in DotO yelling "NOW KISS" at the screen during their reunion cutscene? yes how could you tell
> 
> these have come out more cracky than I expected. if you haven't figured it out yet my favorite trope is a third party being Very Confused while the couple ignores them. poor anton.


	4. 1851 - en route to Karnaca

Surviving for more than a few years as an assassin meant preparing for every reasonable eventuality; the habit hadn’t left Daud, even when the trade did.  When he boarded the ship bound for Karnaca, he had plans in place for a mutiny, a shipwreck, for the rest of the passengers discovering his identity.

 

He did not plan for a portal to the void opening in the middle of his cabin.

 

It wasn’t like visiting the void in his dreams or even like the way everything faded to unreality at the Outsider’s shrines.  The portal hung, round and black and distinctly out of place, over his cot.  Daud only had enough time to lock the door before a woman stepped out of it.

 

It took him a moment to recognize Billie Lurk, changed as she was; she obviously had no such reservations.  “Daud, what—” she began, blinking as she looked around the room.  The portal closed behind her, and the glowing red light in her eye faded to black.  “When is this?”

 

“What,” said Daud, astutely.

 

Billie nodded to herself—at least one of them knew what was going on—muttered, “Ah, fuck it,” and yanked him into a hug.

 

His first instinct was to reach for his sword.  Billie, expecting this, caught at his elbow; Daud made himself relax and realized he was smiling.  “Touching as this is, Lurk, mind telling me what’s going on?”  He had an idea; not many things would have a person asking _when_ they were, and he’d spent too long delving into the void’s secrets to think it was impossible.  Still, he wanted to hear how this had happened to _Billie_ of all people.  He reached up and touched her cheekbone, just under her new eye.  “Did the Outsider do this?”

 

For some reason, the question made her snort.  “Among other things.  Don’t worry, he’s not why I’m here.”

 

“So we finished the job, then.  Or we will.”  He’d always done better on jobs with Billie by his side.  After the news about Delilah, Daud had stopped covering his tracks.  Good to know she’d caught on to the trail he’d left her. 

 

“Yeah.”  She leaned into his hand; her normal eye flickered briefly shut.  “Yeah, we do.”

 

They didn’t do this.  Or they _hadn’t_ done this back in the day.  When Daud had wondered about what their reunion would look like, easy affection hadn’t been a possibility.  More had changed about her than just the eye.  The Lurk he knew had been all jagged edges, always trying to prove herself.  This Billie seemed…at peace, maybe.

 

Billie let him go and sat down on the cot.  After a moment, Daud joined her.  “I get the impression you didn’t expect to see me.”

 

Billie shook her head.  “I’m still getting the hang of all this,” she said, waving her hand vaguely.  “I’m in about the right time, but I meant to go to my ship.”

 

“Why?”

 

She opened her mouth, closed it, and grimaced.  “I can’t give you specifics.  Now that the Outsider is…no longer a problem…there’s a power vacuum.  Some people are trying to take advantage of it.”

 

Daud raised an eyebrow.  “Including you?”

 

“Depends on who you ask,” Billie said, and knocked her shoulder into his.  “I can’t stay too long.  Glad I ran into you, though.”

 

He watched magic shimmer around her hand while he considered the sentiment.  She had never been much for those; if there had been a time when Billie had been so—unreserved, he couldn’t remember it.  She had let on what she thought but only under as many layers of irony as she could manage.  The only reason she’d stop caring about that would be if there was no reason to.  Which meant… “Is it bad, the way I go out?”

 

Billie had never had a good poker face.  One of the reasons she had worn her mask so often.  “No.  It was…peaceful, I think.”  She bit her lip.  “Look, Daud, if you—”

 

“Don’t tell me.  The job’s done, you’re alright.”  He hadn’t expected to live through this, anyway.  _Peaceful_ was better than he had hoped for.

 

She shot him an unhappy little smile.  “Still want to tell you to forget about this.  Even if it’d probably break the whole damn timeline.” 

 

“Thanks for the warning,” he drawled, and took her void hand.  There was no mark on the back.  Would he find the Billie of his time changed like this already?  Or did it happen later, because of the job?

 

She pulled her hand away and stood.  “I really do have to go.”  Billie hesitated, then leaned over and pressed her lips to his forehead.

 

For the second time that day, Daud found himself frozen.  “We don’t—”

 

“No.  We were a little short on time,” Billie said.  She made an odd gesture; her eye started to glow again as the void reopened into the middle of the small cabin.  “Goodbye, old man.”

 

It really had to be goodbye, for her.  Somehow he doubted she’d make the same mistake twice.  That had never been Billie’s style.  “Take care of yourself, Lurk,” Daud said.  “I’ll see you around.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's spookier than finally updating your dead fic amirite fellas. I don’t have an excuse for letting this sit, I just got sidetracked by anime.
> 
> anyway last chapter is mostly written, will post...hopefully tonight, maybe tomorrow.
> 
> as always, comments/kudos/etc good.


	5. 1836 - Dunwall, Gristol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> branches off from the doto lethal ending so, yanno.

As soon as Billie plunged the knife into the Outsider’s chest, she knew she had made the wrong choice.  Inertia and grief had brought her this far.  With the mission completed they disappeared, leaving her hollow.

 

Billie lowered the body to the ground.  Her hands were bloody; she pulled the glove from one and wiped the other on her trousers.  The void began to swirl around her, black sky turning crimson like a sunrise.  “Shit,” she said out loud.  No one to hear her now but a few spirits, and who cared about them?  “Shit, what did I do?”

 

Billie had to get back to the real world; the void was shaking to pieces, becoming more unreal.  Back to the eye, then.  She had left most of the cultists dead or unconscious.  Getting back wouldn’t be too difficult, as long as she hurried. 

 

How had she even gotten here?  Billy pushed herself off the strange platform.  She felt oddly detached, as if she was floating outside herself, a spectator of her own life.  Everything had made sense when she just kept going.  She killed the Outsider because Daud had wanted her to.  She wanted to do what Daud asked because he was Daud, and she hadn’t seen him for fifteen years and then he had died.  She hadn’t seen him for fifteen years because she had betrayed him.  She had betrayed him because he had seemed weak.  He had seemed weak because he couldn’t get over killing the empress.

 

The empress, the empress, everything came back to Jessamine’s death.  Emily, Delilah, Daud…somehow Jessamine Kaldwin had haunted an entire empire for fifteen years. 

 

She didn’t know how long the portal had been forming, only realized when the light from it was shining right on the side of her face.  It hung in the red-black void just past the stone of the cult’s base.  Through the light, Billie could see flickering landscapes: Shindaery cliffs, Karnacan rooftops, open ocean, Dunwall alleyways.  She smelled salt air and whale oil.  When she poked at the portal with her foresight, it refused to go through, but her hand passed into the light easily enough. 

 

If she had cared enough to think about it, she might have worried that the void was giving her what she wanted.  Billie didn’t.  Instead she took a deep breath, mind still lost in the void with a knife and a body and a ghost, and stepped through.

 

\--

 

Billie noticed the smell first.  Standing water, mold, plague rot.  A lot of cities smelled as nasty as Dunwall in the plague days, but nothing had quite the same combination.  She swayed as it hit her, nearly toppling from her crouch. 

 

When she reached out to catch herself on slick roof tiles, she saw gloves.  Billie blinked; she flexed her fingers.  They were sweaty under the thick fabric and a hangnail was protesting its treatment.  Undeniably her hand, undeniably alive.  She yanked the whaling mask from her face, reached for her eye, and found smooth skin in place of stone; on the way back down, her fingers caught on hair curling under her chin.

 

“Uh, Billie?  You alright?”

 

She startled at the voice and turned to see another masked figure on the balcony just below her.  Jo, she thought.  One of the newer whalers when the debacle with the empress happened.  Billie transversed over and held out her arm.  “Pinch me,” she ordered.

 

To her credit, Jo didn’t bother asking questions about that one.  Probably because she’d already decided to write Billie off as _losing it._ She pinched Billie’s arm, hard enough to bruise even through all her layers. 

 

It hurt, of course.

 

“Thanks,” Billie said, and licked her lips, trying to think of a decent excuse.  What the hell were they even doing here, anyway?  When was she, exactly?  They were in an alley in the Flooded District.  Daud had moved them all into the chamber of commerce a few weeks before he took his last big contract.  “Late night, I was nodding off.”  Jo nodded slowly, and Billie put her mask back on.  Helped with the smell, at least.  “D’you know what day it is?”

 

“Sixteenth of Songs?  Something like that,” Jo said.  Billie nodded.  Before the assassination, then.  They killed Jessamine in the Month of Earth.  Jo scratched the back of her head.  “I’m gonna…go patrol over there.”

 

“Great,” Billie said.  “Good work.  Bye.”

 

One good thing about being Daud’s second-in-command: she knew she definitely wasn’t on guard duty. 

 

She transversed away to a half-hidden balcony and gave herself two minutes to have a breakdown.  She was, somehow, fifteen years in the past.  Daud was alive, the Outsider was alive, Jessamine Fucking Kaldwin was alive.  She’d never bought her own ship or heard the name Delilah Copperspoon.  She had very little idea of what to do next.

 

Muscle memory took her across the rest of the flooded district, through the window to the balcony where Daud bunked. 

 

He was distracted when she landed behind him, studying a note on his desk.  Still, he turned when he heard her.  This was the Daud she had carried in her head since she'd left Dunwall.  Daud in a sort of golden age, untouched by regret or guilt.  He looked...young.  Younger than Billie felt herself to be, anyway.  Her faded wanted poster hadn't done him justice. 

 

“Hey, Boss,” she said.  After their touchy camaraderie on the _Wale_ it felt odd.

 

“You’re back quickly,” he said, raising an eyebrow.  Billie liked—had liked—to show off, sure.  But she was thorough.

 

She hesitated over her next words.  How much did she want to give away, here?  “I found something you need to know,” she said.  “It’s about Hiram Burrows.”

 

His hand on the desk spasmed, just enough to pull the note towards him.  Billie’s eyes narrowed.  She hadn’t realized Daud had gotten the offer this early.  Then again, this sort of job took a lot of planning.  “I’m listening.”

 

Billie glanced around with dark vision—no whalers around, or at least none within hearing distance.  The doors were shut and Billie was the only one who would just transverse in.  She took a deep breath and pulled off her mask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> production notes:  
> 1\. i was originally gonna have a much sadder ending with billie finding daud already dead at the albarca baths  
> 2\. i was thinking about making this idea into a much longer fic and then realized i never would  
> 3\. in case you can't tell my other favorite trope (especially with characters with a lot of Ragrets) is time travel  
> 4\. holy shit i finished another multichap, sorta
> 
> anyway! thanks for sticking around and watching as a twentysomething attempts to write grumpy olds. sorry it's mostly platonic? i dunno, i'm better at pre-ship stuff.
> 
> comments and kudos are, as always, much appreciated.


End file.
